Dragon #277 (conclusion)

The next article is 'How You Play the Game'. It's a player advice article about ways to keep the action moving. If you're a barbarian, don't sit around while the party meticulously examines every square inch of a room; just burst through the next door and let the dice fall where they may. DMs will like it because the action keeps moving, and hopefully the rest of the party will be okay with it, too. The idea, after all, is to play heroic characters, not, as they put it in the article, "the dungeoneering equivalent of forensic accountants". It's certainly a more exciting way to play, but it definitely has a different feel than the old-school style, where reckless play would almost certainly get you killed. 3rd edition characters are somewhat more durable than earlier editions, so this style can work here.

Next is the monthly fiction story, "Another Name for Dawn" by Paul Kemp. It's set in the Forgotten Realms, in the city of Westgate. It's the story of a young thief named Vasen who is trying to escape from the Night Masks thieves' guild while they are trying to kill him for skimming profits on jobs. Well, it's a risky profession at the best of times. He evades Night Mask patrols looking for him, and finds a way to escape via a smuggling boat at the docks by faking his own death by drowning. And at the end, he changes his name to Erevis Cale. I've heard the name before, but I haven't read any of the books he starred in. Still, it's a tense, exciting story with plenty of action, well worth reading.

After some more ads and a cartoon page, we get a page on fighting orcs. Tips and tactics to take on the ultimate cannon fodder humanoids, although 3rd edition orcs are definitely a tougher group than they were in prior editions. Recommendations include fighting at range to avoid their greater strength, staying mobile, and hitting them with Will save spells since they generally suck at those saving throws.

Next we get some new magical weapons from the Forgotten Realms. At least, I think they are new; I haven't seen them before, but I haven't read every single Realms article and supplement out there. They are all swords, as follows: Ashram, a +2 scimitar made of bronze that does additional fire damage; Ellendrin, a +3 longsword that drips holy water (making it really good against undead); Galathos, a +2 rapier that can reflect hostile spells back at the caster; Malagar "the Burnfang", a +2 keen falchion that also acts as a ring of warmth; and Sarghathuld, aka "Orcbane", a +1 short sword that acts as a +3 bane short sword against orcs and their kin. Some good stuff here, and plenty of Realmslore as well.

Speaking of Realmslore, we get another Volo article from Ed Greenwood, this one talking about various food establishments in the Heartlands of the Realms. It's three pages of fluff, which Ed is really good at. But it's very skippable.

Class Acts presents a new prestige class: The Rage Mage. Aside from the name, which I know wasn't very popular, this is an interesting class that mixes barbarian rage with sorcerous magic. Or wizard magic, possibly, although sorcerer would seem to be a better fit. Basically, this allows the caster to power his spells with the rage ability. For some reason, though, it doesn't use the barbarian rage, but rather a separate rage ability. I think it would have worked better to combine the two, giving the rage mage additional uses of the spell rage. But they didn't. And the rage mage gets a whole new list of spells rather than continuing the sorcerer/wizard or bard list. I don't think this one was very well thought out. But, it's early in the game's development; maybe they tightened it up later on. We'll find out eventually.

Next is the Rogue's Gallery, which is more NPC writeups, and it's our fourth Realms entry already (fifth if you count the Countdown article earlier). Following the theme of the story, it's characters from an Erevis Cale novel, Shadow's Witness. Again, I've never read it, so I don't know anything about these characters. We have Jak Fleet, a 6th-level halfling rogue/5th-level cleric of Brandobaris, Drasek Riven, 8th-level male human fighter, The Righeous Man, 12th-level cleric of Mask and the guildmaster of the Night Knives thieves' guild, and Yrsillar, Lord of the Nothing, a greater dread (which is apparently a new monster). He eats souls, so not a nice person. Jak is chaotic good; the others are all evil. I'll have to check the book out at some point.

A two-page Nodwick comic strip where they go through the Sunless Citadel adventure, so they're moving on to 3rd edition stuff. Then we get the Forum, where we get a continuation of an argument from a couple of months ago about whether or not ancient men were competent and able to accomplish things like build pyramids. I always loved this; it was such a fun thing to see these debates develop over time. More compliments on the new edition, as well, but the debates were always the highlight of the Forum.

The Role Models article talks about attacks of opportunity, which were always an issue in 3rd edition; I'm pretty sure the AoO rules made most grappling rules systems look simple by comparison. There are some helpful diagrams here, as well as a poster of D&D miniatures to encourage the reader to spend lots of money on them. No, thanks.

Sage Advice is next, with plenty of questions about feats, class skills, spells, and magic items. Basically, it's just clarifications of the new rules, although there is also some errata for the new weapons included in Dragon 275. There are also some Power Play sidebars here, including a dwarf cleric who doubles as a fighter and an elven monk who starts with an AC of 19. They figured out pretty quick how to min-max this edition, didn't they?

Silicon Sorcery brings in some stuff from the Warlords: Battlecry game, including the classic Monty Python weapon: The Cattle-Pult. Yes, a catapult that flings cows at the enemy. Why not? There's also a nasty basilisk tactic where you place them in a semicircle so it's almost impossible to avoid their gaze. Finally, another Dungeoncraft article which discusses the use of secrets in the game to give campaign elements a twist.

We close the magazine with another episode of What's New with Phil and Dixie, where Dixie is demonstrating how to combine sorcery and technology with her legions of necromancers in hover tanks. Well, whatever works.

So, that's another Dragon Magazine done. There's actually a second one this month: Dragon Magazine Annual #5. But I'll get to that later. Next up, we're heading back to Greyhawk with Living Greyhawk Journal #2. See you then.